


The Literacy Test

by BenW



Category: Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24561253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenW/pseuds/BenW
Summary: A short fic featuring the two principal characters from Battlefront: Twilight Company, Namir and Chalis, and addressing a question that's left unsaid or unaddressed throughout the book: how literate is Hazram Namir? Originally written as a response to a Rogue Podron listener question.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Rogue Podron Made Us Do It





	The Literacy Test

As usual, it wasn’t quiet aboard the  _ Thunderstrike _ . The ship had at least some noise at all hours; if it wasn’t a gathering of off-duty ship’s personnel having a drinking contest, it was the maintenance team tearing one of the bulkheads apart to find and fix some sort of larger issue. And that was just the ship’s actual personnel; the  _ Thunderstrike _ ’s belly was full of soldiers from the Rebel Alliance’s Sixty-First Mobile Infantry, Twilight Company, and would be until their next mission commenced. Twilight had its own contests, its own maintenance to attend to, and plenty of other things that happened at all hours. Everyone was tense and on edge, the retreat had sucked all of the wind out of them and then the promise of a new operation, a way to hit back against the Empire in a solid, meaningful way, filled them up again. Everyone’s tempers were riding on the edge of a knife.

So it was not the ideal time for thankless, almost pointless discussions that were sure to end in utter failure, but then Everi Chalis had not gotten anywhere in life by shying away from challenges. She’d had many discussions with the leadership of Twilight Company over the past few days because the idea for their current mission, what they had inelegantly dubbed Operation: Ringbreaker, had come from her, though she was sure to not take all the credit. They didn’t trust her, so they questioned her and cross-examined her and went back and forth over every detail of the plan again and again. It was exhausting, and especially hard on her throat and lungs. Most of the damage done on Hoth had healed, but the coughing wasn’t going away, and Von Geiz, the company’s chief medical officer, wasn’t sure that it would.

Still, there were things that she still needed to address outside of a meeting. Things that could mean the difference between life and death once the operation commenced. So, she was walking from her own cabin to the cabin that had formerly been Captain Micha Evon’s, the man the beings of Twilight called Howl, and was now occupied by the company’s acting leader, Captain Hazram Namir. Micha had been a kindred spirit, a philosopher and deep thinker, they had been able to converse for hours and debate all manner of things. Namir was… not.

He’d been raised in war on a backwater planet, so he was a natural leader when Twilight was actually engaged in a fight, he understood the ebb and flow of battle almost instinctually. Everyone listened to him, or at least respected his voice, because of that. But once the battlefield was behind them, Namir was a fish out of water. He did not socialize, in fact he barely spoke to anyone when it wasn’t business, and as near as Chalis had been able to tell his only hobby was cleaning his weapons. In every aspect aside from his battlefront experience he was entirely unqualified to be a leader of men, and his only other redeeming quality was that he knew it. He had not asked for command, he had been elected on the strength of the plan,  _ her  _ plan, and the fact that Micha had valued him as more than just a soldier. The other senior members of Twilight Company valued their late Captain’s opinion above all others, even their own.

But Micha Evon was dead, and the company he had built and kept running through force of will alone was now under a new command. If Twilight Company was going to survive, they needed a better leader than the man Captain Namir was now, and Chalis was going to do what she could to make sure that happened. Because if Twilight Company died, she would die with it.

So she went to the cabin door, and she gave it a single, direct knock before stepping inside. As she expected, Namir was awake and alert, it looked like he had been patching a hole in one of his equipment pouches with some contact sealant and a scrap of blaster-resistant cloth that didn’t match. He looked up at her from under his brows; he wasn’t happy to see her, he could see the anger in his eyes and a bit of color rise into his face’s copper tone. He looked haggard as well, his face was unshaven and there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he had either been unable or unwilling to sleep.

“This is not a social call.” She announced to him immediately, “My coming here has a purpose, and once completed I will leave.”

“Does it have anything to do with that ‘pad you’ve got behind your back?” He said. His voice wasn’t the sort you might expect from a lifelong soldier, he didn’t have the thick growl like someone who had been partaking of death sticks for cycles on end. His tone was mellow, his accent unrefined and rural.

That was the most aggravating thing about him, in fact. Where he came from, the way he talked, the way he walked and held himself, he reminded Chalis of her own past, a past she tried to bury deeper with every day she lived. Around Namir, though, she let it slip back out every once in a while. At first, it had been unintentional, emotions and memories blending together in a moment of embarrassingly unguarded speech. But when he started to respond to it, either consciously or unconsciously softening his opinion toward her and being more willing to listen to her, she started doing it on purpose. The best forms of manipulation were the ones built on nothing but truth, after all.

“In fact, it does.” Chalis brought the datapad around in front of her and presented it to him. This was the moment of truth. “Here.”

He looked at the ‘pad for a long moment, at what was on the screen, then back up at her. “Are you-”

“I am giving this to you, and I want you to read what it says and then return it to me.” She told him. She watched his face very intently to see what his reaction was, not just to what she said, but also to what she had typed into the ‘pad and left up there for him to read.

His eyes flickered across the screen for a moment, then jumped back up to her face. “Is this important, or just another one of your-”

“Take the datapad.” She switched to her most officious voice, the one that always made Namir the most angry with her, to make sure that she had his full attention. “And read what is on it. Captain.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s on it, if it’s so important?” He challenged her, and she knew she had him.

She gave him her most theatrical sigh and withdrew the datapad from him, then swiped her hand across it to wipe the message from the screen. With her finger, she started using her sketching program to write out a new message. “I had hoped that I would not have to do this, but it seems that my suspicions were correct and this is something that needs to be addressed. Here, read this.” She turned the datapad back around and presented it to him again, this time just holding the screen outward so he could see it.

“What’s this all about?” He asked, “You come in here and shove that in my face, giving orders like  _ you’re _ the one in charge, what’s your game?”

“It’s simple, something I noticed through my time in your company, Captain. I have never once seen you read. Daily reports are delivered in meetings, your hold in-person briefings around every operation and order, and on the few occasions where you have addressed the soldiers you are ostensibly in a leadership position over, you never write notes about what to say, it always comes off the cuff.” She withdrew the datapad again and glanced down to the message on it. “So I submit to you, Captain Namir, that you  _ cannot  _ read galactic Basic, and you may in fact not be able to read any written language at all. Because if you could, you would be furious at me for an entirely different reason, because you would be able to understand what I wrote here.”

Namir looked taken aback by her words, and angry at her supposition. But that did not mean that she was wrong. “And what did you write?”

“Irrelevant.” She erased the message and tucked the datapad around behind her back once again. “For all you know it was the lyrics to an operetta I wrote when I was in the Academy, or perhaps a transcription of one of His Majesty the Emperor’s speeches with every third word replaced by the word  _ cupcake _ . My point remains and stands. You cannot read.”

“I’ve never found the need.” He said. He was on the defensive now, surly instead of angry. “Someone’s always telling me where I need to go and what I need to do, I don’t have to get it off a screen.”

“You mean you haven’t had to until now. Things are different now, Captain Namir. You are not the sloppy foot soldier that you have always been, nor are you the rough and tumble Sergeant that Micha entrusted you to be. You are a Captain, and a leader, and there are beings depending on you to be attentive and informed.” Chalis took a deep breath. This was going to be hard for both of them, she had her pride, he had his stubbornness. But for the good of Twilight Company, and for both of their own sakes, it had to be done. “Now, I want to impress on you that I am not judging you for this. You have not needed to be able to read and you have gotten this far without it. Perhaps you simply were not afforded the opportunity to learn. Regardless of how or why, I believe that it is in the best interest of Twilight Company that you learn.”

Namir absorbed all of this, setting his equipment aside and then standing up. They were around the same height, but he was more broadly built, a hunger-panged frame that had been packed with taut muscle over years of constant war. His eyes were like glass marbles as he stared at her, dispassionate and cold. “And what if I say no? What if I tell you to go to hell and take the datapad with you?”

“Then I believe you would be making a mistake. And I do not believe that would be what Micha, what Howl would want for you. He saw something in you that no one else, not even I, can see. He saw potential to become something more than what you were when Twilight found you on Crucival. But you cannot become what Micha wanted you to be if you sit here alone in his old cabin patching holes in your equipment. Growth requires action, and you require a teacher.”=

“You. That’s what you’re thinking. You want to teach me to read.”

“At the very least you need to be given the tools to figure things out on your own. Military jargon and parlance is built on abbreviations and acronyms, so merely giving you a list of words to memorize would be pointless. If you learn aurebesh, I think that would be a good starting point; the rest would come through time and experience, the same way you have always learned. You may lack formal education and refinement, Captain, but I do not think you are a stupid man.”

“I really don’t care what you think, or for your opinion.” He didn’t quite lean forward or take a fully aggressive stance, but there was a sense of that, a sense that he wanted to intimidate with his posture, squaring up his shoulders, puffing out his chest. “I get by with what I have, I can get through a tech manual for new weapons or gear, and if I miss something someone lets me know. So all you’re doing is sticking something in my face so you can make a point of telling me how much I don’t know. I don’t appreciate that from people,  _ least  _ of all you.”

Chalis sighed. She knew that this was a waste of time. “I see I have wasted both of our time, then. Very well, go back preparing for our upcoming operation, I will not bring this up again.” She closed the datapad down, powered it off, then turned on her heel and walked out of the cabin.

She was three steps into the hallway, and well on her way to forgetting that the whole conversation had taken place and onto the next task set before her, when Namir’s voice struck her from behind. “Wait.”

She stopped, and without turning around, she asked, “Yes? Captain?”

There was silence for a moment, which Chalis assumed was Namir chewing on his words while he decided what he wanted to say. The distant sounds of commotion and work were louder in the hall than they were in the cabin, making it seem like she was halfway between quite different worlds. She half-expected him to fling an insult at her, but then again, while Namir had made his dislike and discomfort with her presence within Twilight Company abundantly clear, he had most often stopped short of petty words. He was a man of action first and foremost, calling her names as she walked out of his cabin did not fit his personality.

“Is it really that important?” He said at last, his voice a distant, almost fading thing.

“Of course.” She said, still not turning to face him. “I would not come here if it was not.”

“Come back here.”

She turned, but she did not walk back toward him. Namir was sitting on his bunk again, his elbows parked on his knees and his hands laced together against his mouth. He looked up at her with that hunter’s expression he often had, dark eyes wary and watching. She could almost see his disdain for her weighing itself in his mind against what she had told him. She’d watched him kill enough people to know that if he truly wanted her dead he would do it, so she wasn’t frightened of him. Still, there were times when he turned that expression on her and she had a vision to a day where her usefulness to him would be at an end, just like it had been for the Empire.

“I’ll give you five minutes to walk me through whatever plan you have in mind.” He told her, mouth still hidden behind his hands. “After that, if I don’t like it, then you get out and this never gets mentioned again.”

Chalis smiled. “I will only need three minutes, I think.” She walked back to the cabin, datapad swinging around in front of her again, and waited until he had shifted himself over to the far end of the bunk to sit down. If there was any other seating in the room she would have chosen that instead, but she had to make the best of limited options.

She sketched something quickly on the pad, then turned it around and showed it to him. “This symbol, I’m sure you have seen this before. This is aurek, the first letter in aurebesh, both the name and the alphabet itself. When someone writes that sound, this is what they use.”

Namir sat with his arms folded over his body. His blank expression told her that he was following her, but not impressed. So, she kept going.

She turned the ‘pad around again, sketched something else out, and turned it back around. “This second symbol is nern, this is the eighteenth letter. And I am showing it to you out of order on purpose. Like aurek, the name leads with its sound, keep that in mind. So, so far, we have nern and aurek.”

Once again, he did not look like he was caring about what she was saying, but he also did not look confused or lost, which meant that so far, it was going as well as she expected.

She turned the ‘pad around again one more time and did some more writing, speaking to him as she did so. “I am going to add three more symbols and tell you what their names are, and I want you to tell me what they spell out once they are all together.”

When she turned the screen toward him, she heard him intake a bit of breath, either like he was going to say something or something had surprised him, but when she paused for his response, he said nothing.

“Now,” She told him, “We have nern, aurek, mern, isk and resh. Can you tell me, now knowing what I told you, what this word is?”

He paused for a long moment, looking at the screen and looking at her in alternation. “It says Namir.” He said at last, “My name.”

“Indeed. No doubt you have seen this before on reports and equipment requisitions and such things, but now you know what it means. This is how it appears when someone references you in writing, or when you have to sign your own name to things.” Chalis lowered the datapad for a moment so she could be sure she had his full attention. “Well? Am I allowed to continue, or will we spend the remainder of your five minutes staring at each other in silence?”

Namir took a deep breath and let a sigh out through his nose. “Go on.”


End file.
